Rory MacDonald is never going to be Georges St-Pierre, and anyone expecting him to be will end up being disappointed.

Where St-Pierre was charismatic, MacDonald is shy. Where St-Pierre always seemed up for playing the media game, MacDonald seems to view his obligations with the press as part of the price he has to pay to be allowed in the octagon.

But on the other hand, Saturday night’s performance at UFC 174 in Vancouver showed that MacDonald may just be ready to give fans the electrifying in-ring performances that sometimes eluded St-Pierre in his last couple years of fighting.

That’s something that may push the 24-year-old B.C. native to the top of the Canadian MMA mountaintop that his training partner left behind when he walked away from the sport.

If he’s interested, that is.

“I want (Canadian fans) to like me, but I don’t want to be a superstar,” MacDonald said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference.

“I just like to fight and hopefully I’ll be a dominant champion and represent Canada well.”

MacDonald may not be interested in being a superstar, but the UFC is sure hoping he’ll rise to the challenge.

UFC president Dana White spoke throughout the week about the ways his organization has ridden the popularity of non-American superstars into foreign markets.

It’s something the UFC is openly doing in Mexico with Cain Velasquez, and it was always able to bank on GSP’s popularity in Canada to bring in sell-out crowds and blockbuster ratings.

With MacDonald likely in line for a title shot soon, the UFC would love to see him become the transcendent star that his Tri-Star training partner was.

After utterly dominating Tyron Woodley in front of a crowd that was chanting his name from the opening bell, MacDonald was less interested in talking about his rising fame than he was about getting a shot against welterweight champion Johny Hendricks.

With the winner of Matt Brown and Robbie Lawler’s July 26 bout already promised the next title fight, MacDonald knows he’ll have to wait.

“It’s not that I don’t want the title shot -- I want it to be clear that I do want that -- but I respect the decision that there’s two guys ahead of me who were promised it,” MacDonald said.

“If that fight’s a stinker, I’m ready to step in. I’m right there at the top and I think I’ll be holding that belt very soon. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

The question now is what comes next for MacDonald.

He knows he’s probably next in line after whoever wins the Lawler-Brown fight, but with that fight a month away and then at least a couple of months before the followup for the belt, MacDonald could face a long wait on the sidelines.

There’s a level of risk that would come with stepping back into the octagon before his title shot. He could get hurt, or he could lose and fall back down the pecking order.

Expect him to take that risk.

“I’m gonna take some time and chill out after this fight, we’ll see what happens. I’m not going to take a long break, that’s for sure,” MacDonald said. “I’ll be around to fight.”

If Saturday night’s performance, which he called his best ever, is any indication, he’ll be around fighting to bring the welterweight title back north of the border sooner rather than later.

NOTES

Tom Wright, the managing director for UFC Operations in Canada, emphasized yet again that the UFC will be back in Calgary.

A return to Calgary has been a regular topic of conversation this week in Vancouver, in part because the Sun’s MMA reporter has insisted on bringing it up again and again.

At Saturday’s press conference, Wright made it clear that the organization wants to throw a better card in Calgary than the disaster that was UFC 149.

“In our plans for 2015, those plans haven’t been finalized, but I’d love to go back to Calgary and you can bet that when we do it’ll be a great card,” Wright said.

As for the Jon Jones-Alexander Gustafsson fight, Wright said Toronto’s still very much on the table as a potential host.

“It’s really important that we come back to Toronto,” Wright said.

“It’s the economic capital of the country and where a lot of business decisions are made. It’s too early to say, we’ll be making a decision in the next week or so.”